Getting started with writing MPI programs

In this coming semester, I am starting some research on large-scale distribu开发者_C百科ted computing with MPI. What I am looking for help with is the initial stages, specifically getting a solid development environment set up. Does anyone have any recommendations for good tools to use for this?

I am also curious as to whether there exists a kind of simulator that would allow be to write MPI and distribute it to virtual (rather than physical) nodes.

---

You could download a MPI library such as Open-MPI, MPICH, etc. and run it on a multi-core system (such as a recent desktop) with number of processes = number of cores. They would operate without a network interconnect (for instance, over shared memory). That should be enough to explore initially.

If you really want multiple nodes, you can experiment with multiple VMs with a VM network before actually moving on to a physical cluster. One of the VMs would have to be configured to act like a NFS server and the rest of the VMs could mount your home directories over NFS.

---

Depends on what is your favourite language. I dove into MPI using python and the pypar module. It lets you concentrate on MPI procedures without worrying too much about pointers and complicated c / c++ stuff. MPI on a single machine is programmed no differently from MPI on 100s. Getting cross machine setups is more about what MPI implementation and operating systems you use.